Harlan Kirgan
The Prairie Acadian Cultural Center is in its 25th year and from its beginning it has been a place where Cajun-Creole French found a shelter.
On Saturday evenings, the Liberty Theater showcased Cajun and Creole music.
Its emcee for many of those 25 years, Dr. Barry Ancelet, would speak Cajun French in show that was broadcast live over the radio.
Angelle Bellard, park guide at the Jean Lafitte Prairie Acadian Cultural Center, spoke recently to the Eunice Kiwanis Club about the center and its role preserving the culture that once dominated this area.
When Eunice Mayor Curtis Joubert spearheaded the lcoation of the center, Cajun country was rapidly being Americanized.
A National Park Service history of the center stated, “As Mayor Joubert put it in an interview, the most common stereotype about Cajuns was that they walked barefoot along the bayou, wrestling the occasional alligator on the way to the next beer joint.”
Bellard said the National Park Service did what they could to preserve the culture and “...make people aware of just wonderful it is.”
Event with the year-by-year efforts at the center, the French language remains in danger of being lost, Bellard said.
“We were Americanized to the point that our language died,” she said.
Parents used French as a way to communicate privately and their children failed to learn the language, she said.
Cajun French will be taught at the center in Eunice beginning May 30 and continuing on Tuesdays from 6 to 8 p.m. for 16 hours of instruction at cost of $25, she said.
Class size will be limited to 35 people, but a waiting list will be developed for later classes, she said.
The instructor will be Kirby Jambon, a French immersion teacher at Prairie Elementary in Lafayette.
Bellard said anyone interested in taking the class should contact the center at 337-457-8499.
The center also has an active Saturday program that begins with workshops for children from 10 a.m. to noon.
Other Saturday activities include:
— Cajun conversations to learn and practice conversational Cajun French (from 1 to 2:30 p.m.;
— Music and dancing at 2:45 p.m.
— Cooking demonstrations at 4 p.m.; and
— Music at the Liberty Theater at 6 p.m.
Summer camps, Camp Bonjour, will be held from July 10 to 14 for ages 9 to 12; and from July 17 to 21 for ages 6 to 8.
There is a $50 registration fee and a limit of 12 campers per session.
Camp Bonjour activities include Cajun French music, zydeco music, Cajun dancing, old-fashioned games, storytelling, hands-on arts and crafts, and activities on Cajun culture and the National Park Service. In addition, campers ages 9 to 12 will learn water safety, canoeing, and other outdoor skills led by a National Park Service ranger.
The center is located at 250 W. Park Ave.